Day one: The sounds of London clattered and wheezed. "Hmm", thought Gabriel Northwood, a jobbing barrister. "This must be Seb's London Bonfire of the Vanities. I'd better read the Qur'an: such a nasty book. Though obviously not nasty in a fatwa-inciting sense." Underground, Jenni Fortune savoured the loneliness as she slowed her tube train, while Sophie Topping conveniently listed the people she had invited to dinner the following weekend. There was the odious book critic, DJ, not to be confused with DJ Taylor who had given Seb crap reviews in the past, Spike Borowski the Polish footballer, John Veals the hedge-fund manager and Farooq al-Rashid, the pickle magnate.

Day two: John Veals gawped at Olya on the Naked Russian Babes website before planning his run on the Allied Bank and cleaning up on commodities at the same time. He wasn't at all sure anyone was that interested in the minutiae of the banking system, but Seb had told him he had done loads of research and he was buggered if he was going to waste it. Upstairs, his son Fin smoked skunk while watching It's a Madness, the reality show set in a psychiatric ward. Seb smiled. Tom Wolfe would have loved that satire. Tom groaned.

Day three: Hassan al-Rashid rang the bell. He hated his father's wishy-washy Islam and the attentions of the apostate, Shahla. Salim opened the door. "The time has come," he said. "Your instructions are embedded in the private parts of Olya on the infidels' website." Farooq sensed Seb was clutching at straws when he had him ask DJ to give him lessons on literature on the premise he could then talk to the Queen when he received his OBE. DJ didn't care – he was happy enough trashing his rivals.

Day four: Spike had no idea why he was here. He supposed Seb imagined a footballer would show how everyone in London was connected. Even when they weren't. He also thought it was scraping the barrel to force him to go out with Olya, just because Veals and Hassan had spurious links to her. "Shut up," Seb had said. "It's my book. You're lucky to be in it at all." Gabriel sensed the loneliness in Jenni when she came to his chambers to discuss her appealing the negligence conviction against Transport for London after someone jumped in front of her train. "Shall we go out and read the ghastly Qur'an later?" he asked.

Day five: Even Veals was getting fed up with all the details of insider trading, but Seb insisted it should stay. "Readers need to know how corrupt and neglectful of your family you are," he said. And how clever you are, Veals thought. Fin watched the schizophrenic Alan commit suicide on the reality show, while smoking another kilo of skunk. "What's that noise?" cried Fin, as Tom groaned even louder. "It's you becoming psychotic," Seb laughed. "You'd better go to hospital." DJ sobbed as he was overlooked for the Cafe Bravo prize. Tee hee!

Day six: "Thank Allah that's over," thought Hassan as he hurried from his father's investiture to collect his bomb. "You're to blow up a hospital tomorrow," Salim said. "That's not very nice," Hassan replied. Gabriel looked Jenni in the eyes. "If you stop spending so much time on the internet and I forget my ex, maybe we could go out together," he said. Jenni grinned. "Good," he continued. "Let's read a bit more of the crap Qur'an before visiting my brother in the mental hospital. Is that Fin on the same ward? What a coincidence."

Day seven: Seb smiled ruefully. His great dinner party scene hadn't been a patch on Tom's. Then, London was so much more restrained and anti-climactic than New York and one didn't want to go over the top. And he had tied up the loose ends. Hassan had decided he couldn't be bothered to bomb anyone and had shacked up with Shahla, Veals had made his money, Gabriel and Jenni were a couple, Fin was going to get better and DJ had promised to lay off modern novelists. The others? Well, he'd never really cared about them anyway. Time for a nice cup of tea.